Sonori-kaะ #7 // Mr. Robert Treborikki

Posted On: December 7, 2011
Posted In: bangkok, bob mcferrin, castle in the sea, independent, music, my mocha dream, pentatonic scale, Sonori-kaะ, sony, sound design, Treborikki Pomegranates
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Sonori-kaะ is a Bangkok-based music project that will cover the independent music scene gravitating around the Thai capital!! Armed of our camera and our passion for music we will tour the city to offer you every week new interviews, videos, and pictures … to culminate in the next months in the first Sonori-kaะ live event! Stay tuned!!! And don’t forget to visit our Projects page for more information!!

Sonori-kaะ คือโปรเจ็คดนตรีที่จะครอบคลุมวงการดนตรีอินดี้ในมหานคร รวมไปถึง วงดนตรี, โปรดิวเซอร์, ค่ายเพลง, event organizers, คลับต่างๆ, ดีเจ, ร้านเพลง และอื่นๆอีกมากมาย
เมื่อมีกล้องถ่ายรูปอยู่ข้างๆและความหลงไหลในดนตรี พวกเราจะเดินทางทั่วกรุงเทพเพื่อเสาะหา บทสัมภาษณ์, วีดีโอและภาพถ่ายต่างๆทุกอาทิตย์ สำหรับ live event ครั้งแรกของ Sonori-kaะ
ที่กำลังจะเกิดขึ้นในอีกไม่กี่ เดือนข้างหน้านี้!

Week 7 (and some time)

And we are back! Finally!! And we are very happy that our come back is with an artist that we like very much, “Mr. Robert” Treborikki. His first album is in the top 100 most listened to albums for the past decade and his second album has been very well welcomed by independent music radio station. But in this interview he tells us more about how he started and made his way in the music world, his inspirations and his projects! Enjoy!!

Treborikki: “You come up listening to music! I think for me one big influence comes from my mother. I was born in Vietnam and my mother was Vietnamese; she herself grew up listening to local Vietnamese music influenced by the French. When I think back at the music I was listening at that time I think it was more French folk and jazz combined with Vietnamese folk and pop. I grew up and I remember her playing that music every day of the week, and then on Sunday when my dad was home he listened to all the Thai late 60s pop, Beatles, Elvis and Chinese music as well.

My parents bought me my first acoustic guitar when we moved to the States. I remember going to school everyday with this guy, Andreas and one day his parents bought him a guitar. I went to the shop with them and I was like: “What is that?! I need to have it too!!” But it was only later one, when I came back to Bangkok, that I really started to get into how to play it. One of my classmate offered to teach me. At that time that movie came out about Ritchie Valens, La Bamba, and everyone at school was playing that song, you know, to make a good impression with the girls. From that on I loved music more.”

Treborikki: “I started writing my own songs for the first time in high school. My family and I moved to Indonesia and most of the kids at school didn’t speak English, so probably I guess I tried to connect with them with my music. My English literature professor was the one giving me confidence in my writing, and from that on I kind of picked up the drum and the piano too.

In the years that followed I made the best of every free moments I had to just sit down in front of my keyboard and writing, writing, writing. I spent nights in Bangkok coming back from my job to work on my music as well as two years in Colombo, trying to play and write even though we had electricity only for 8 hours a day. There have been moments when everything surrounding me kind of made me think that maybe I wasn’t good enough, but I still hold on to my dream inside.

In 2003 my friends convinced me to come to FAT Radio Festival and to bring my music with me. One of them had a kiosk there and I prepared my first EP for the occasion. That was the moment when things really changed for me. My friend Brian gave my CD to the radio guys, who immediately played some of my songs and after some time the contract with Sony music came. They all helped me and supported me a lot throughout my career as a musician, my friends and the radio people.”

Treborikki: “Someone told me that my sound is very cinematic and I think in some way it’s true. I try very hard when I write my music to create a picture. I don’t want you to just like what you’re listening to. I want that every time you hear my music it keeps hunting you inside. That’s my goal for every song I make.

In the past years I have been studying a lot sound design and sound id. In some way it is true that vibration creates sound and from sound it creates things that form into shapes and objects and without movement we’d not exist. And this relationship and balance it’s something that really interest me.”

Sonori-kaะ: At the end of our interview, we got lost talking about different cultures and different music and sounds and how the first influence the seconds. And it was then that Robert told us about Bob Mcferrin and the Pentatonic scale, the universal scale of sounds. Have a look!! Absolutely amazing!! Thank you Robert!!